Win or lose, Karla Reid already has a two year modelling contract

karla reid/girlfriend via ninesmn.com.au

Yesterday frockwriter predicted that, given the babymodel brouhaha which erupted in Australia this year, Girlfriend magazine may have issues with its choice of a 12 year-old as state finalist in the 2008 Girlfriend Model Search. And so far two Australian media outlets have picked up the story. One point seems to have been overlooked. Both The Australian and ninemsn.com.au reported that Reid is in the running to win a two-year contract with the Chic Management model agency. As stated in the competition’s terms and conditions, reported by frockwriter yesterday – and as confirmed again today by Chic – Reid has already won a two-year modelling contract with the agency just by being a state finalist. The outright winner of the competition wins additional representation with Chic’s New York affiliate Next.

As Reid’s mother Karla Reid told ninemsn.com.au today, the Chic Management contract might not start "for a few years".

However she already has the contract.

And let's clarify something here, Chic Management is not a childrens' modelling agency.

According to frockwriter’s model industry sources moreover, sometimes it is in fact the parents who are pushing their kids into work, even if the agency wants to hold back.

There are highly reputable modelling agencies which do carefully monitor the type of work done by underage girls, as well as ensure that they are strictly chaperoned at all times.

Chic Management certainly appears to be one of them.

By the same token there are also disreputable agencies.

There are parents who allow underage girls to travel the world without chaperones.

And there are also apparently clients who either don’t know that the women who appear in the provocative images in their magazines/advertisements are underage – or who simply don’t care.

Not forgetting the creeps who leave comments (obviously unpublished) on blogs like this, saying precisely what they think about the girls in question.